Rwanda’s most popular referee Salma Mukansanga is scheduled to officiate at the forthcoming 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Mukansanga brings to the pitch rich experience gained from previous competitions she has officiated. She is the first female Referee to officiate an AFCON game.
She has also officiated at the FIFA World Cup, Olympics, FIFA Women’s World Cup, AFCON, WAFCON and CAF Women’s Champions League.
The tournament will be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, and runs from 20 July to 20 August.
The 2023 tournament will also be the first Women’s World Cup to take place under FIFA’s overhauled commercial structure, announced in 2021, which for the first time “unbundled” the women’s game from the men’s, allowing brands to take up dedicated partnerships exclusively for its women’s football programmes.
Meanwhile, Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA has threatened not to show this year’s Women’s World Cup in five European countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, in a row over money.
He said the current offers from broadcasters for the rights were “disappointing” and described them as a “slap in the face” of all great players and “all women worldwide”.
Infantino added that it was the “moral and legal obligation” of football’s world governing body “not to undersell” the tournament.
He cautioned that if the offers “continue not to be fair [towards women and women’s football], we will be forced not to broadcast the FIFA Women’s World Cup into the ‘Big 5’ European countries”.
He claimed broadcasters had offered FIFA between U$1m and U$10m for the rights, compared with U$100m to U$200m for the men’s World Cup.
